Talk:Washington Blade

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Good article Washington Blade has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
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[edit] Recommendations

And I think you ought to consider going to GA. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:35, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. This article does not appear to be the article I thought I looked at. :) But, if you're still interested in GA -

  • The lead needs to sum up the entire article. Ideally, it needs to be able to stand alone.
  • The references are not formatted properly, see WP:CITE for more.
  • How is the paper laid out? Formatted?
  • Tell me more about Bladewire. Who came up with it? What's its circulation?
  • Some questions: Has there been any controversies surrounding it? Has it ever won awards? What's the readership demographics? What's the editorial line? Any good scoops? Any competition?

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'll review later. This is important what you're doing, btw, no LGBT newspaper has made it beyond a stub yet. If you can get this up to FA, we'll have a precedant to work from. Good luck! Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

This article is starting to shape up nicely, though I'm worried about the proliferation of short sections. Anyway, here's an FA newspaper that I found that you may find helpful: The Philadelphia Inquirer. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 18:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I think the lead needs work but you can go for GA after that, I think. Even if there's other stuff they want they'll put it on hold for you to fix. I'd just like to say, well done, this article has been so improved. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA nomination

I am not going to pass or fail the article since I have been loosely involved with the article. Currently, I would put it on hold:

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
  5. It is stable.
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
  7. Overall:
    a Pass/Fail:
  • 1b prose:
    • Prose isn't a strong point of mine, so for now I'm going to leave it alone.
  • 1b structure:
    • Awards may make sense under history. Actually, general overview may be a better home for it. (I think it makes sense anyhow, but it's not a large concern of mine)
Moved to the General overview area. jtowns 06:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
    • The history subsections "1950s to June 1974", etc. still bother me. It doesn't tell me anything of interest about the section. The cutoff seems very arbitrary too. For subsection "1983 to 2000", "AIDS crisis" could make sense if it centers around the paper's response to AIDS. The section name makes me want to read it and know exactly what to expect.
Renamed to titles that give contextual clues to the section content jtowns 06:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Fixed footnotes for consistency with the MoS jtowns 06:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Try to eliminate the redlinks. I don't know if some links are notable enough to have their own article, for example 1993 Gay March on Washington?
1993 March on Washington is referenced in a few other places in the Wiki -- so I put info in. Other links could be de-linked I suppose. jtowns 06:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
fixed dates and linked them jtowns 06:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
fixed numbers to fit style -- but I may have missed one or two of them....please double check me. jtowns 06:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 2b inline citations:
    • Reference titled "D.C.'s landmark gay and lesbian weekly lands on the cutting edge of media" needs to be referenced in the same manner as the rest of the references, otherwise, it looks good.
The above mentioned article is referenced with the same info and style of the rest of the citations. Please advise if this is the wrong style?? jtowns 06:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I could not locate a better source but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I limited what I referenced from this page when I found a better source to reference said material -- but it was the only place I could find reader demographics. Better suggestions?? jtowns 06:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 3c OR:
  • 3a major aspects:
    • I don't know much about the paper, but it looks fine.
  • 6c non-free images:
After reading the fair use thing for scans of newspaper pages -- I think it is an approriate use. jtowns 06:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Suggestions not applicable to a GA pass/fail:
    • Redirect old paper names, like The Gay Blade (and Gay Blade), to this article.
Done. jtowns 06:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
    • BladeWire and Bladewire should redirect to this article.
Done. jtowns 06:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the following yet: 2a, 3b, 4a, 4b, and 6a. -- Ash Lux (talk | contribs) 21:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review

At present, I don't think the article meets quite meets several elements of the GA criteria. I'll put it on hold to give time to address my concerns, which I'll explain below.

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
  5. It is stable.
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): [[Image:|15px]] c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
  7. Overall:
    a Pass/Fail:

[edit] MoS

The names of the subheadings in the history section are a bit of a problem. "Coming of age years" in particular seems rather informal and the phrase does not seem to have been used by any commentator. I suggest more factual descriptors of the period or subdividing by the dates involved. Ideas could be:

  • Origins - 1974-1983 - 1983-2001 - 2001-present (though that seems a little clumsy)
  • Origins - Early development - Effect of the AIDS crisis - Corporate ownership (or similar)
Changed these to year time periods -- which is ironic because AshLux (see above on this talk page) advocated getting rid of the dates for dividers. My main issue is that the history section started as one long blob which needed something to make it seem to flow better and so I arbitraily broke it at these points -- the first being the origins, the second being when it switched to newsprint paper and stopped being a newsletter, the third when it started coming of age with AIDS reporting and professional journalism, and the last when they got bought for the corporate ownership. Maybe there is a better overall way to organize this section... but for now I'm going back to the year subheadings since that was what I originally had... jtowns 13:50, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Original research

The list of notable contributors is unsourced. It should referenced or removed.

Removed -- list came from a search of 'What links here' on the wiki to find folks who linked to this article, plus a couple of the big names that came up in doing the history research. They are red links meanign they probably aren't significant enough yet to warrant their own entries on the wiki. Perhaps this could be revisited in the future if someone stumbles across an independently made list. Since it adds little value to the article, I removed it for now. jtowns 13:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral POV

Not sure here but the coverage seems very critical of the paper. Are there any reliable sources that can be quoted that praise the newspaper that could counterbalance the "criticism and controversy" section?

I attempted to do this by putting in the awards section and referencing how it is considered a gay newspaper of record at the start. My issue is that there was not a lot of info out there for awards won. I seached in most of the databases of journalism awards I could find, I followed leads off the Blade's own website, but I didn't stumble across more awards or praise for the paper that what is in the article. I know the criticism and controversy section is long, but there is a lot of criticism out there and I tried to make it as factually based and un-opinionated as possible while being concise and still detailing the issues some folks have. If the criticism section has NPOV issues itself, then by all means please bring them to my attention so I can fix them. It seems (like most things) that the critics are many in numbers and vocal, while the praises are few and quiet. If you have additional suggestions to improve this balance, please let me know. jtowns 13:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
No my issue is definitely not that the criticism section is written in an POV manner- its definitely not. More the undue weight/ fair representation problem if positive comment doesn't balance it. But if that isn't available too bad, it can still pass GA if a little shaky on a couple of the criteria... WjBscribe 14:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use

All images used in this article are copyright and so require full fair use rationales, explaining why their use in this article is necessary. Such rationales need to be added to the image description pages.
It is important to remember that unfree images should only be used when they significantly add to the article, and should not be used only to decorate it. As such, I have doubts about the necessity of:

  • The "BladeWire" Logo. Unless illustrating a discussion of the distinctiveness of said logo, this image appears merely decorative.
Seeing as it was decorative -- I removed it jtowns 14:01, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The Gay Blade issue. This image needs to be making some point that cannot be made in words. I suggest the caption emphasise that it is the first edition and makes a comment like "demonstrating its layout at the time"
Tried to fix the rationale for fair use and importance to the article. Let me know if it doesn't make sense. jtowns 14:01, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Historical covers. At the moment the caption is very long and only informs the reader of the dates of the editions. Why are these editions important? They could be alright if described as "a series of covers illustrating the evolution of the publication's design", though it would be helpful if design changes were described in the article's text, to justify why illustration of these is important.
I know the caption is long, but I wanted it to be descriptive of the covers readers were seeing. I added the importance an fair use rational to this image as well. Please tell me if it doesn't make sense or needs further improvement. Thanks jtowns

[edit] On hold

The above concerns should not detract from the fact that the article is very well written and informative. Newspapers are extremely difficult to write strong articles about. There are few GA in this field and no FAs that I have seen. WjBscribe 23:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I think I have addressed the issues you have raised and they may still need additional work, so please let me know. For reference, here is the only newspaper FA that Dev920 or I could find -- The Philadelphia Inquirer. For GA's -- here are the only two publications listed in the media section of the list: The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. Thanks! jtowns 14:05, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review- passed

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
  5. It is stable.
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): [[Image:|15px]] c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
  7. Overall:
    a Pass/Fail:

Given the changes made following my comments, I believe the article now meets to GA criteria. It is weakest on 4b given the lack of positive critical comment to balance the criticism & contrversies section but this seems to reflect lack of availability of such information. I do not believe it enough in of itself to fail the article, but is definitely an area where improvements should focus. WjBscribe 15:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rumors removed

I removed the following block of text because I could find no sources to verify it with. It was added by an IP address only user and so therefore I removed it until it can be properly sourced...

There is also controversy surrounding the promotion and resignation of features editor Rhonda Smith, who was offered the Arts Editor position over Brian Moylan in 2002. Rumors still run rampant that Smith, an African-American lesbian, was promoted from a reporter position to an editor, to add diversity to the Blade’s predominantly Caucasian gay male staff, as Moylan seemed a better fit (he still writes for the publication’s TV column). Smith’s inability to mesh well with others, also caused a stir and drew lots of complaints during her tenure as the paper’s arts editor. Rumors are that in 2004, the Blade’s then editorial assistant, who worked under her supervision, quit because of Smith’s continuous verbal abuse and demanding persona. The editorial intern at the time, was offered the EA’s position and turned it down, which is rumored to have eventually led the Blade’s higher ups to suggest that Smith leave. Before Smith resigned, the intern left the Blade in August 2005. Smith resigned in the fall of 2005, a few months after hiring a replacement for the editorial assistant who left the paper in May 2005, and Moylan took on the role of the paper's arts editor.

Anyone got any sources for this? jtowns 05:21, 17 April 2007 (UTC)